However, I managed to smile and say in a voice of sweet reason, ‘Good morning, Ned. I thought we’d better have a chat. Do you want to come out, or shall I come in?’
But when he hesitated, my resolutions crumbled and I snapped impatiently, ‘You can leave the door open so you can scream for help, if you want to.’
‘I’d forgotten that sharp tongue of yours,’ Ned said, reluctantly drawing back to let me pass.
‘You seem to have forgotten pretty much everything about me, though I haven’t forgotten what you were like,’ I said, finding myself in a light space with a drawing desk and tables at one end, with tall baskets of rolled plans and a whole back wall of white-painted corkboard. It appeared to be covered in photographs of projects, plants and what looked like a blown-up photo of an old plan of the apothecary garden … And there was a wide circular path around the central beds, as I’d suspected, with narrower straight ones radiating out from it to the four corners. There seemed to be another, smaller circular bed right in the middle of the garden, that I hadn’t been able to see and—
Ned’s voice stopped me in my tracks as I moved towards the plan.
‘College was a long time ago and we’re different people now,’ he said, going to an area at the other end of the long room that looked designed for customers, with a minimalist sofa and chairs arranged round a coffee table, and switching on a kettle.
‘Leopards may grow older, but I don’t think they change their spots,’ I said, but he didn’t seem to hear that.
‘Coffee?’ he snapped.
‘Coffee, hemlock, whatever’s on offer,’ I agreed, seating myself on one of the angular chairs. The seat seemed to hang from the frame and swung as I sat down, which was a little disconcerting, but it was surprisingly comfortable.
He was taking his time over the coffee mugs, back turned to me, so I thought I might as well begin what I had to say.
‘Yes, college was a long time ago and we didn’t keep in touch – plus, I’ve been living in France lately, so I had no idea what happened to you last year, until Myfy told me,’ I said. ‘But I immediately realized that the Ned Mars I’d known wouldn’t have behaved like that, even before I’d googled it and seen all the details – and although I never liked Sammie Nelson, I’d never have thought she’d turn out to be such a lying cow!’ I added. ‘But you seemed quite willing to believe any vile tale about me.’
He finally turned from the kettle, teaspoon in hand, and stared down at me, frowning. ‘But I was told by someone who actually saw your resignation email that it was totally …’
‘Unhinged?’ I suggested helpfully. ‘A long, rambling list of deeply detrimental statements about my boss and colleagues? Yes, I know – I’ve seen it too. But I neither wrote it nor sent it.’
‘But he said you’d been off work – and everyone understood that it had affected you badly, once your husband had explained it.’
I felt myself go white: this was ripping old wounds apart with a vengeance. The pregnancy, unplanned and initially unwanted, had been quickly followed by a traumatic miscarriage and my being rushed into hospital …
‘Tongues have been busy,’ I said, when I could control my voice. ‘Yes, I had an early, but bad, miscarriage and was off work for a month recovering, but I had no intention of resigning … or not in a way that would slam the door in my face for future jobs,’ I said, because when Treena and I drew up my original escape plan, I was to email HHT and tell them I’d been called away urgently to France because of family illness. Then, after that, resign on the grounds that I would be absent for some months.
‘I loved my job and was in line for promotion – and I can guess who told you the sorry tale and then got that promotion himself.’
He looked thoughtfully at me, as if actually seeing me properly for the first time, then carried two mugs of coffee over and set them on the table, before sitting down opposite.
‘I did think at the time he shouldn’t be spreading the story about like that, but he had seen the letter you say you didn’t write, so perhaps you’d better explain a bit more. I mean, maybe you wrote it while you were ill and don’t remember?’
‘I lost a baby, not my mind,’ I snapped. ‘And I suppose I will have to explain a bit more, though I’m only asking you to employ me as a gardener on a pittance, not take out adoption papers.’
Given what I’d read in the papers online about the scandal nearly scuppering his director’s adoption proceedings, that was perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase and he scowled at me.
‘I’d forgotten there was always a certain unripe fruit tartness about your conversation and you don’t seem to have mellowed.’
‘Well, dig a bit deeper and you might remember that I was about as down to earth as it was possible to be without growing roots,’ I advised him, then took an unwary sip of coffee. My taste buds immediately shrivelled and died and my throat tried to close up.
He was looking at me curiously. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Your coffee is disgusting,’ I said, when I’d mastered the urge to spit it out, which would not have quite set the tone for the rest of the conversation, besides leaving a horrible stain on the rush matting.
‘Don’t hold back from politeness, will you?’ Ned said, sarcastically.
‘Sorry, but I’ve been used to something a bit better than cheap instant. I think this one must have been brushed up off the factory floor.’
‘I didn’t think it was that bad,’ he said defensively. ‘But I’m thinking of getting a coffee maker for the office. It would be nice for the clients.’
‘I’m only surprised you have any, if you give them this muck.’
‘I don’t have that many these days … but then, I haven’t been advertising for customers, since I moved here. But I do need some income coming in until the garden opens to the public and starts to pay its way.’
‘I’d get a cafetière or filter jug,’ I suggested. ‘That way you can put the grounds on the compost heap.’
‘I’ll think about it, but my coffee-making facilities aren’t really what’s on my mind at the moment.’
‘No, I don’t suppose they are. You want me to convince you that if you employ me, there aren’t going to be yet more scandals hitting the headlines,’ I said bluntly.
‘That’s about it,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve left all the media stuff behind me, so I’m not in the public eye any more, and that’s the way I want it to stay. I’m making a new life here – it’s always been home to me and a refuge when I needed it.’
‘With no serpents in Little Eden,’ I agreed. ‘And I’m certainly not that serpent, because I hoped Jericho’s End would be my refuge too, where I could literally get back to my roots and start over again, among people who didn’t know anything about my past.’
‘And then we came face to face,’ he said. ‘It’s a small world.’
‘It is, and now I’m going to have to drag the past up again, which is the last thing I wanted to do, and tell you about my marriage.’
‘I assume you aren’t married now? Elf seemed to think you were single when she told me she’d offered the job to someone.’
‘Not any longer. It was a brief marriage – little more than a year – and I’d have left sooner, except for the unexpected pregnancy and the miscarriage. It was a difficult relationship, because he was jealous and controlling. That kind of thing is talked about more these days and called coercive control. But he picked the wrong victim in me.’
I gave a bitter smile. ‘He was never quite sure he had me completely under his thumb, until I let him think the fight had gone out of me, those last couple of weeks. But I was just biding my time.’
I paused, but Ned said nothing, just sipped his disgusting coffee. I supposed he was used to it.
‘As soon as I was well enough, Treena – who is my adoptive sister, as well as best friend – helped me get free and over to France. I went to stay with my family first, then moved around their circle of friends after that, even when
Mike – my ex – gave up trying to find me.’
‘He did try?’
‘Oh, yes, and attempted to convince my family I didn’t know what I was doing and needed him. He was good at that kind of thing and had already managed to come between me and my family once – and my friends. But they weren’t buying his lies this time. I kept in contact with my solicitor over here, though, and eventually Mike agreed to a divorce because he wanted to remarry. That was when I finally thought it was safe to come back again.’
‘I’m so sorry. I know how horrible jealousy in a relationship can be, especially when it’s totally unfounded,’ Ned said sincerely. ‘And I’m sorry about the miscarriage, too.’
‘It was totally the wrong time – just when I was about to leave Mike – but I did want the baby when I found out, even if it complicated things. Mike was delighted, of course – he never wanted me to work, but stay at home, where he could keep track of me. But after I lost the baby and was so out of it in hospital, he sent that resignation email in my name.’
When I had opened my inbox for the first time and found an email from the HHT accepting my resignation, I have to admit I’d doubted my own sanity for a moment, but I wasn’t about to tell Ned that. I’d tracked the resignation email down in my Sent box and another Mike had sent, telling them I’d had a nervous breakdown and to take no notice of anything odd I might have said in my resignation.
Ned, however, seemed still to have some reservations, but be unsure how to frame them. ‘Right … And I mean, you are sure you didn’t write that email and forgot?’
‘No, of course I didn’t and, what’s more, the day it was sent I was in hospital, having the contents of my womb scraped out, which was as much fun as it sounds.’
That was brutal, but then, so had my miscarriage been.
He winced. ‘I’m so sorry and … I think I do believe you and that you haven’t made all that up.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I said drily. ‘Anyway, once I’d recovered, Treena and I decided to put my escape plan into operation and at the first opportunity …’
‘You did a bunk?’
‘Yes, it seemed the only way out at the time. Mike had done a good job of convincing everyone he was the perfect husband, coping with a neurotic wife and isolating me. If your partner was jealous too, you should know how things get twisted and people are ready to believe stupid lies about you, even when they’ve known you for years.’
‘That’s true. And I apologize for not realizing you would never cast yourself as a neurotic victim. You really haven’t changed much at all.’
‘You should have seen me just after I reached France. I was a nervous wreck! But once I had time to get things back into perspective, I was fine.’ I paused. ‘My aims in life are totally different now. I’ve no ambition to be head gardener at a stately home, which would probably mostly involve doing paperwork anyway. What I love is the physical connection with the soil and the seasons and new life. I like getting my hands dirty and I’m not afraid of hard work. Other than that, I want peace, quiet and somewhere to live.’
‘There’s a lot of peace, quiet and hard work here, that’s for sure. When I inherited Old Grace Hall, I decided my mission in life was to restore the apothecary garden to what it once was. But I love the house too. It’s in need of a lot of work, and there isn’t much money. I need to get visitors into the garden and keep on my design work … but at the moment, there are only two very elderly part-time gardeners to help me. There was an occasional jobbing gardener, but he wasn’t reliable.’
Wayne Vane, I supposed. Revealing my connection with that family really would send my stock dropping like a stone down a well!
I said briskly, ‘Which is where the idea to share a gardener with Elf and Myfy comes in – I’m cheap, hardworking and on the spot, even if not cheerful,’ I said. ‘I’m fascinated by the apothecary garden and dying to sort out that jungle of rose briars, too.’
Ned grinned suddenly, which took years off him, and said, holding out his hand, ‘Yes, I think you are exactly what I need, Marnie Ellwood. Pax?’
‘Pax,’ I agreed, taking his hand. His strong fingers closed warmly around mine for a moment and then let go.
‘Right, that’s settled then,’ I said, more briskly, getting up. ‘I’ll have to go now, because I’ve got loads of things to organize in Great Mumming and I won’t get the chance again till next week. But I’ll come here first thing in the morning and then make a start on the Lavender Cottage garden later. I have to go up the River Walk after four every day, anyway.’
‘OK and then I can show you round the garden and fill you in on our plans,’ he agreed, following me to the door. ‘I’ll introduce you to James and Gertie then, too.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ I lied, though it would at least be a nice change to have elderly gardeners barking commands at me in English instead of French.
The pheasant had vanished, but the peacock was now squatting on the wall and his lost-soul wail followed me all the way back through the gardens.
9
Hot Beds
I didn’t go back to the flat, since I had with me the small rucksack which did duty as a handbag. I skirted round the end of Lavender Cottage and drove off over the humpbacked bridge. There were few people about and luckily I met no other traffic on the narrow lane to the main road. This time, opposite the layby near the end of it with the bus stop, I noticed a sign for Cross Ways Farm …
I was in Great Mumming before ten and, feeling a little jangled by my talk with Ned and having to drag up the past again, I had coffee and a giant apple and custard Danish pastry in a teashop in the market square, where I’d parked. The coffee was good and I felt better for the sugar rush, even if a bit sticky.
I needed to stock up my larder with a few basics that had become indispensable to me since I moved to France. I’d learned to cook quite a lot of French recipes, though mostly not Cordon Bleu. I was more of a bean-rich cassoulet kind of girl than a Boeuf Bourguignon one. Just as well, because I wouldn’t be able to whip up anything lavish in the kitchenette of the flat, with its mini oven/grill, microwave and two hotplates.
I’d checked my list of things to do while eating the last of the pastry and the first stop was to pop in and see my solicitor, to thank her for all she’d done for me in the last few years and give her my new address, which Elf had included in her email after I’d accepted the job: The Flat, 1 Lavender Row, Jericho’s End. I’d email her with my mobile phone number once the SIM card arrived, which it might have done today. It would be odd to have a permanent mobile phone number again.
I’d written it all down in case she wasn’t free, but luckily she had ten minutes before her next client and we could have a chat.
After that I tackled the banking situation. I’d closed my account before I left for France, giving most of what was in it to Treena, so she could pay any solicitor’s bills that came up.
There hadn’t been a huge amount in my bank account, since I’d been transferring most of my wages into Mike’s, to help with the household bills, while he was supposed to be paying money into a building society account ready for when we bought our first house together.
But that was the past, and another country, one I didn’t want to revisit. I decided to open a Post Office bank account instead.
That settled, I went to the supermarket and bought a basic and rugged phone, nothing fancy, and a cheap digital watch. I was just as deadly to watches as I was to phones, maybe even more so, forever dropping them into things, or plunging my arms deep into wet earth or leaf mould before remembering I was wearing one.
I drove the short distance to Treena’s cottage in sunshine, my spirits lifting a little. She’d said she would bring lunch, and I’d bought two gigantic cream horns for afterwards, the kind with buttery crisp flaky pastry cones, filled with thick cream and delicious dark jam at the bottom, a cornucopia of confectionary decadence. We both had a sweet tooth and I hadn’t eaten one of those for years.
Flaky.
Treena had only just arrived when I got there and was unwrapping two traditional Lancashire hotpot pies in foil cases, fresh from the bakery oven.
We ate them while they were still hot, peppery and delicious, watched avidly by all the animals, then guzzled the cream horns, too (I didn’t confess to my earlier giant Danish pastry; it seemed a Miss Piggyness too far), before settling down with a pot of Earl Grey to sort out the laptop and phone.
Treena had transferred everything she wanted from her old laptop to the new and cleaned her stuff off it.
My sim card had arrived too, so after that we unpacked my new phone.
‘I didn’t know they still made phones that basic,’ she said disparagingly.
‘It’s all I need, and I’ve got the laptop now for anything else,’ I said, watching her deft fingers inserting the new sim card. ‘It’ll be great to have a permanent phone number again.’
I’d been a bit paranoid about changing numbers with my phones, but there was no way Mike could find this one out, even if he wanted to. And I certainly wasn’t ever going on social media again. It made me too easy to track down.
‘And I suppose I’ll have to try and get my poor old car through the MOT soon,’ I sighed.
‘There’s a small garage in one of the backstreets here that’s reasonable and they don’t give you that “Oh God, there’s a woman in my workshop” look when you go in.’
‘The good thing about 2CVs is there isn’t very much that can go wrong, and if bits drop off, you can stick another one on. Though I don’t suppose there are many as old as mine over here.’
‘Probably not outside a museum, anyway,’ Treena said, pouring us both another cup of tea.
The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 9